So my 8 year old is obsessed with Pokemon. 3 weeks ago we opened some power packs online together for a cool pikachu for them. Well while on my iPad playing Minecraft turns out she wanted to look at more cool cards and racked up 10,000 dollars in purchases. Contacted power packs and they said since it was the same device previously used there’s not much they can do but offered a 2500 refund. So I accept this or talk to amex about a charge back? I have never done a dispute before and don’t know how they work or how unauthorized charges with your own kid works.
8 year old ran up 10k on my credit card, what do I do?
byu/Mypeashooter inpersonalfinance
Posted by Mypeashooter
37 Comments
The good news here is that you used an Amex card. Those guys really take care of their card holders. Call them ASAP.
You lucked out that the charges were on Amex. Do a chargeback, saying they were unauthorized purchases and the vendor refuses to reverse them.
I don’t know shit about shit but if I’m you immediate chargeback, let the app company ban the account take the stuff back whatever, no way you let 10k slide away.
And more importantly put some damn restrictions on the iPad. Require a password before purchases go through? Either he knew he was doing something wrong or you didn’t explain it well enough
This is worth a chargeback. It was not you that authorized and made the purchases so this is a legitimate use of chargeback. Call AMEX ASAP to get this resolved. Also, work out some sort of child-safe features on your devices because if your kid was able to do that I shudder at what else they could be up to online without supervision.
**Who’s responsible for your kids’ unauthorized credit card charges?**
[https://www.cnbc.com/select/whos-responsible-for-kids-unauthorized-credit-card-charges/](https://www.cnbc.com/select/whos-responsible-for-kids-unauthorized-credit-card-charges/)
So you assumedly have these cards still in the vault, right? Obviously there is luck involved in the pulls, but you very likely still have $8k+ worth of cards. Could you just sell those cards? Or did your kid sell these cards all back and accrue $10k in true losses? That would be a metric ton of pulls. This is a tough situation, but ultimately it is your job to monitor your child, teach them how to behave, and prevent this from happening in the first place. If you still have the cards, a $2500 refund seems more than fair and I would be delighted that they are willing to work with you.
How people decide to leave their payment information saved on a device and not require some form of password or pin to authorize any purchases baffles me.
I get a text whenever a purchase of over $100 is made on my card, or if the balance goes over a certain limit
They deserve the chargeback. What did you cost them – a few server pings? It’s not like you cost them shipping/manufacturing of 10k in physical goods. They should have refunded it all IMO and just wanted to see if you’d settle for 1/4 back which is rude.
Minors cannot enter into contracts. Any sale to a minor can be rescinded.
This happened years ago with a game on my son played where the purchases of the upgrades were through Apple. Apple refunded the entire amount when we called.
I never worked at Apple, but at Amazon the magic words when talking to support about something like this are “Unauthorized child purchase”.
Learn a hard lesson… that’s what you do.
I genuinely don’t understand how this even happens. I must be too old or something.
These stories are so common I’m genuinely shocked that credit card companies haven’t started adding ‘child protection’ in the same way they’ve been much more on the ball with fraud prevention.
If my card getting charged 30 dollars of fast food and a carwash is enough for my credit card company to think my card got spoofed, and they were correct, than 10,000 dollars of digital Pokémon cards ought to set off *one or two* alarm bells.
You mean you gambled on power packs and got nothing for it? Good luck.
I will say this now… go get a generic Gmail or Microsoft email address for your kid and create unique account for everything. Don’t have them piggyback on yours.
In a few years, it will be obvious why you need that and it is painful/annoying for them to have their Minecraft world built on your account and then not be able to transfer it to theirs
You sure that you didn’t just open these packs?
I truly don’t understand how this happens. Doesn’t every online charge immediately send an email receipt? How are parents missing this?
Maybe I check my email too much… but I would be notified the moment it happens…
Happens a lot. Do a chargeback but also be ready for some consequences on your accounts because then it turns into a battle between apple and the third party about who’s responsible if the charges went through apple in any way.
The account used to open the packs will definitely get suspended/closed so your kid is going to lose whatever they had going on including any authorized purchases. Apple, I believe allows a one time dispute of this nature and if it happens again they close your account entirely.
Issue a charge back and send the products back to them.
Kids are going to live their best life with the rules you set. You’re a gamer/streamer and left an 8-year-old to play with an open tab. Sounds like you should have your Amex taken away for a little while.
With power packs you should have a few days where you can sell the cards back. If you haven’t checked their value you should take a look, if you were lucky you might even come out ahead.
you dont get alerts for purchases on your credit card? you need to button up your security.
If I’d have done this as a kid, I’d have been beaten senseless or possibly to death.
Whenever I have to pay for something on my kid’s device (like Robux or whatever), I use a prepaid gift card as my credit card. That way even IF they are able to circumvent all other protective measures they’ll be limited to whatever $$ was on the GC.
Add password protection to any purchases online if possible. I would go as far as no auto logins either. If need be, link a gift card so the max amount is finite.
In the meantime. Call your bank. These were unauthorized charges not made by the card holder. You did what you were supposed to and contacted the merchant. The merchant denied your request as a partial refund is not going to cut it.
They will help you out and will get your funds back. The company will definitely ban your account and possibly the device where the purchase occurred on.
You should circle back to Powebacks and ask for a supervisor. Gotta be the squeaky wheel and keep demanding resolution. Many first-line cs agents are only authorized to do the bare minimum.
I would do an Amex chargeback in parallel but it was a legit purchase so you may not get resolution there.
Why do you have your credit card saved onto your iPad? Why would you give that to your kid?
Edit: You’re supposedly a streamer and you’ve never heard of password protection? We’re doomed.
This happens all the time, these companies know it, they’re just trying to now-ball you on money. If they won’t budge so a charge back.
I find it funny yall are worried about the kids account being banned, if (and prob when) my kid charges 10k for “game loot”… they wouldn’t need to worry about their account being banned because they’re going Amish for a until they turn 16.
Lots of unsolicited parenting advice in a personal finance thread.
To OP: You’ve already gotten this advice but I’ll just echo it again, charge back the CC and you’re likely good to go on recouping the funds.
Chargeback. You didn’t authorize the transactions. Call Amex and tell them this; they will take care of it.
Charge back it is digital content so they can easily take it back
And lock down purchases on the iPad
Raising iPad kids is expensive which is why I have a screen-free household.
Leave everything un opened for 20 years and thank your kid in 20 years for the 100k they made u
They deserve the chargeback. That’s absolutely ridiculous.
When my son was 5 he charged $100 on Nintendo Switch for Fortnite Vbucks. They gave the money back right away. That was the first and last time he ever tried that and now every single device has a super annoying security requirement for purchases.